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 Posted: Tue Sep 02, 2025 10:03 pm
"There was.....a lot of bad things that happened back then. But being here helped a lot. There's something kinda magical about animals that are usually skittish deciding to place their trust in you, y'know? So when I would come up here to hide, and the usually shy barn cats decided to curl up with me, it just.... It made everything just a little less awful, I guess." She smiled softly, watching as the little tabby sniffed Madeline's hand before butting her head against it and purring loudly. "Just like that, actually. She usually doesn't warm up to people so fast." Setting the mama cat down, she smiled a bit brighter as she watched her walk over and flop dramatically down against Madeline. "Most of these cats were all strays, honestly. We get them fixed and spayed when we can catch them, but this girl was already pregnant when we found her, and then she gave us a run for our money after her first litter when we tried to catch her. It's like she knows when we're trying to put her in a crate and she gets some sort of magical escape artist abilities. I planned to get her spayed immediately after this litter, but then these two little ones were having such a rough time that I didn't want them to not be with their mama, and she would have to be indoors while she healed so that her incision site wouldn't get dirty or infected. So it's a waiting game at this point." Reaching over, Halia scratched the tabby behind the ears and lightly booped her nose. "There will always be kittens around though. Because there will always be more strays showing up. We just....feed and take care of as many as we can. They're good for keeping mice out of the hay and all that." Smiling softly, she gently tucked the tiniest of the kittens she was holding into the front of her shirt, letting it nestle against her chest. "I have to keep telling myself that I'm not allowed to get too attached to this one because I can't bring it home with me. It's killing me to walk away from it every time."
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Posted: Wed Sep 03, 2025 7:53 pm
Madeline nodded understandingly - she didn't know all the details, but she could piece together the gist of it, between what she'd seen on Halia's body, what she remembered from school, and what Mason had implied. He would never say anything explicit, of course, and Madeline wasn't inclined to push for details - it wasn't her business, really, and she respected that Mason valued Halia's privacy. "Kittens do make things less awful," Madeline agreed, "don't they? Don't they?" Madeline scritched beneath Mama Cat's chin, smiling as the purring level increased, rumbly and happy. "I'm glad you're taking care of them. There are a lot of programs out there nowadays to help with spaying and neutering, but...yeah, there will always be more kittens than we can keep up with. Isn't that amazing? Isn't that a good thing, baby? Isn't it?" Madison nuzzled against the nearest kitten, a happy smile on her face. "What good babies you all are. Yeah. Aren't you? Aren't you?" Madeline let the quiet spread between them for a moment, content to listen to the squeaky little mrow-mrows coming from the kittens, and then she looked back at Halia. "Why couldn't you bring it home with you? You have enough space now, right? It's not like there's some big adoption fee or something." Madeline laid down, letting the kittens turn her into a human jungle-gym. "And if you don't, it could easily get hit by a car or eaten by a hawk or something. And that would be bad, wouldn't it? Wouldn't it?" Madeline pet the kitten that was stomping all over her chest, laughing as another rolled off her stomach. "What good babies. What good babies, yeah, aren't you?" Mama Cat came over and sniffed at Madeline's hair, and Madeline gave her a share of pets as well. "You did a good job, Mama. Yes, you did. Yes you did."
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Posted: Wed Sep 03, 2025 8:14 pm
"Kittens make everything better. And just baby animals in general." She smiled softly and scratched under another kittens chin before laying down as well. A few of the kittens immediately made their way to lay on top of her and she laughed. "Unfortunately, I have a new job where I work more and I have my uh. Second job, so to speak. And between work work and magical work, I don't think I'd have time to properly care for them and give them the attention they'd need." A wry grin spread across her face however. "You could always take one or two of them though I bet."
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Posted: Sun Sep 14, 2025 12:41 pm
"Oh, don't say that," Madeline groaned, burying her face in the nearest fluffball. "It's only by pretending kittens don't exist in the real world that I haven't turned our entire house into a cat sanctuary by now." Madeline let out a heavy sigh, then looked over at Halia with a little smile - a shy one, but real. "Thank you," Madeline said, voice soft. "For...wanting to go to lunch, initially, and then also...bringing me here. Showing me these guys." Madeline sat up carefully, holding a bundle of kittens in her arms gingerly, unwilling to let even one of them squirm away from her. "We don't have a lot of friends," Madeline said, mostly addressing the kittens, "and I...mostly I like it that way, but...I'm really glad you and my idiot brother met. Not--just because you saved his life, though I will be forever grateful for that, but..." Madeline swallowed. "It's...nice to have someone other than Mason to go to lunch with. Talk to, sometimes." She wanted to say more - that she had thought maybe Halia was taking pity on her, or that she was only trying to butter her up, or that she was only doing it to score points with Mason. She wasn't entirely convinced that at least one of those things wasn't true, but she was convinced that if it was, it wasn't on a conscious level - that if it was for one of those reasons, it wasn't on purpose, it wasn't malicious, and that counted for... A lot, in Madeline's book. But she couldn't quite say all of that out loud, quite yet. "Just--thank you," Madeline finished, shaking her head to clear it. "This has been...a surprisingly good day. Thank you." lena roze we can call it fin here if you want, or you can reply, i'm good either way!
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